John Wexley
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John Wexley
John Wexley (1907 – February 4, 1985) was an American writer, best known for his play ''The Last Mile''. Early life and career Wexley was born in New York City. His early career involved acting as part of Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre. Theatre In 1930, Wexley wrote the play ''The Last Mile'', one of the most prominent "prison dramas" of the 1930s. Brooks Atkinson of ''The New York Times'' called it "a taut, searing drama" and "an evening of nerve-racking tension in the theatre". A Pacific coast production was produced by Lillian Albertson at the Majestic Theatre in Los Angeles, and it was adapted for the screen in 1932 and 1959. In 1934, he wrote another play titled '' They Shall Not Die'', a dramatization of the Scottsboro case and trials. First performed at the Royale Theatre in March 1934, Brooks Atkinson described it as "a play of terrifying and courageous bluntness of statement". A film adaptation was planned in 1950 by Charles K. Feldman, with Wexley having ...
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The Last Mile (play)
''The Last Mile'' is a Broadway play by John Wexley that ran for 289 performances from February 13, 1930, to October 1930 at the Sam H. Harris Theatre. It was produced by Herman Shumlin and staged by Chester Erskine. It is set in the death row wing of a prison. The lead role of John "Killer" Mears was first played by Spencer Tracy, and it was the role that brought him to the attention of Hollywood. It was later played for a time by Clark Gable on tour. The play was adapted into a 1932 film starring Preston Foster and into a 1959 film starring Mickey Rooney. Cast * Howard Phillips as Fred Mayor * James Bell as Richard Walters * Hale Norcross as "Red" Kirby * Ernest Whitman as Vincent Jackson * George Leach as Eddie Werner * Don Costello as Drake * Spencer Tracy as John Mears * Herbert Heywood as O'Flaherty * Orville Harris as Peddie * Ralph Theodore as Principal Keeper Callahan * Richard Abbott as Harris * Joseph Calleia as Tom D'Amoro * Henry O'Neill as Father O'Connors * C ...
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Labor Stage
Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour movement, consisting principally of labour unions ** Labour Party or Labor Party, a name used by several political parties Literature * ''Labor'' (journal), an American quarterly on the history of the labor movement * ''Labour/Le Travail'', an academic journal focusing on the Canadian labour movement * ''Labor'' (Tolstoy book) or ''The Triumph of the Farmer or Industry and Parasitism'' (1888) Music * ''Labour'' (song), 2023 single by Paris Paloma Places * La Labor, Honduras * Labor, Koper, Slovenia Other uses * ''Labor'' (album), a 2013 album by MEN * Labor (area), a Spanish customary unit * "Labor", an episode of TV series '' Superstore'' * Labour (constituency), a functional constituency in Hong Kong elections * Labors, fic ...
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Joe Pasternak
Joseph Herman Pasternak (born József Paszternák; September 19, 1901 – September 13, 1991) was a Hungarian-American film producer in Hollywood. Pasternak spent the Hollywood "Golden Age" of musicals at MGM Studios, producing many successful musicals with female singing stars like Deanna Durbin, Kathryn Grayson and Jane Powell, as well as swimmer/bathing beauty Esther Williams' films. He produced Judy Garland's final MGM film, ''Summer Stock'', which was released in 1950, and some of Gene Kelly’s early breakthrough roles. Pasternak worked in the film industry for 45 years, from the later silent era until shortly past the end of the classical Hollywood cinema in the early 1960s. Biography Early life He was born to a Jewish family in Szilágysomlyó, Austria-Hungary (now Șimleu Silvaniei, Romania). His father was a town clerk and Pasternak was one of eleven children. In 1920, he emigrated to the US as a teenager and stayed with an uncle in Philadelphia. He worked in a fa ...
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Cornered (1945 Film)
''Cornered'' is a 1945 film noir starring Dick Powell and directed by Edward Dmytryk. This is the second teaming of Powell and Dmytryk (after ''Murder, My Sweet''). The screenplay was written by John Paxton with uncredited help from Ben Hecht. Plot After the end of World War II a former P.O.W., Canadian RCAF flyer Laurence Gerard, returns to France to discover who ordered the killing of his bride of only 20 days, a member of the French Resistance. His father-in-law Étienne Rougon identifies Vichy collaborator Marcel Jarnac. He supposedly died in 1943, but Rougon has strong doubts. Jarnac was careful about maintaining his anonymity and the police have no description of him. But his own associate compiled a dossier on him; Gerard finds a burned fragment of it, and an envelope addressed to Madame Jarnac. From this he manages to track the widow to Buenos Aires. When he arrives Gerard is met by Melchior Incza, a stranger who appears to know all too much about him. The suspicious Cana ...
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The Long Night (1947 Film)
''The Long Night'' is a 1947 American film noir crime-drama directed by Anatole Litvak and produced by RKO Pictures. It is a remake of ''Le jour se lève'' (1939) by Marcel Carné. The drama stars Henry Fonda, Barbara Bel Geddes, Vincent Price and Ann Dvorak. The title of the original French film is an idiom which translates roughly as "dawn is breaking". ''The Long Night'' was the first screen appearance by character actress Barbara Bel Geddes and it served as a springboard for Bel Geddes's career. RKO signed Bel Geddes to a seven-year contract. Plot A dead man tumbles down a flight of stairs. When the police arrive at the top-floor apartment of Joe Adams (Henry Fonda), he shoots at them through the door. The sheriff calls in reinforcements and sets up snipers on nearby rooftops. Adams, in his room, begins a recollection of the events leading up to this, beginning with his first chance encounter with Jo Ann (Barbara Bel Geddes), who works in a flower shop. It turns out they had ...
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Hangmen Also Die!
''Hangmen Also Die!'' is a 1943 noir war film directed by the Austrian director Fritz Lang and written by John Wexley from a story by Bertolt Brecht (credited as Bert Brecht) and Lang. The film stars Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Brian Donlevy, Walter Brennan, Alexander Granach and Anna Lee, and features Gene Lockhart and Dennis O'Keefe. Hanns Eisler composed the score, being nominated for an Academy Award, and the cinematographer was James Wong Howe. The film is loosely based on the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi Reich Protector of German-occupied Prague, number-two man in the SS, and a chief mastermind of the Holocaust, who was known as "The Hangman of Prague." The real Heydrich was assassinated by Czech resistance fighters parachuted from a British plane in Operation Anthropoid, but in the film, which was made during World War II before the full story had become public knowledge, Heydrich's killer is depicted as a member of the Czech resistance with ties to ...
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The Amazing Dr
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun ''thee'') when followed by a v ...
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Confessions Of A Nazi Spy
''Confessions of a Nazi Spy'' is a 1939 American spy political thriller film directed by Anatole Litvak for Warner Bros. It was the first explicitly anti-Nazi film to be produced by a major Hollywood studio, being released in May 1939, several months before the beginning of World War II and over three years before American entry into the war. The film stars Edward G. Robinson, Francis Lederer, George Sanders, Paul Lukas, and a large cast of German actors, including some who had emigrated from their country after the rise of Adolf Hitler. Many of the German actors who appeared in the film changed their names for fear of reprisals against relatives still living in Germany. The film's story is based on a series of articles by FBI officer Leon G. Turrou, recounting his investigation of Nazi spy rings in the United States. Parts of the film are drawn from thRumrich Nazi Spy Case the first major international espionage case in American history. Plot In Scotland in 1937, the postma ...
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Angels With Dirty Faces
''Angels with Dirty Faces'' is a 1938 American crime drama film directed by Michael Curtiz for Warner Brothers. It stars James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, The Dead End Kids, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, and George Bancroft. The screenplay was written by John Wexley and Warren Duff based on the story by Rowland Brown. The film chronicles the relationship of the notorious gangster William "Rocky" Sullivan with his childhood friend and now priest Father Jerry Connolly. After spending fifteen years in prison for armed robbery, Rocky intends to collect $100,000 from his co-conspirator Jim Frazier, a mob lawyer. All the while, Father Connolly tries to prevent a group of youths from falling under Rocky's influence. Brown wrote the scenario in August 1937. After pitching the film to a number of studios, he made a deal with Grand National Pictures, who wanted Cagney to star in the lead role. However, the film never came to fruition, owing to Grand National's financial troubles that led t ...
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Theatre Guild
The Theatre Guild is a theatrical society founded in New York City in 1918 by Lawrence Langner, Philip Moeller, Helen Westley and Theresa Helburn. Langner's wife, Armina Marshall, then served as a co-director. It evolved out of the work of the Washington Square Players. History Its original purpose was to produce non-commercial works by American and foreign playwrights. It differed from other theaters at the time in that its board of directors shared the responsibility of choosing plays, management, and production. The Theatre Guild contributed greatly to the success of Broadway from the 1920s throughout the 1970s. The Guild has produced a total of 228 plays on Broadway, including 18 by George Bernard Shaw and seven by Eugene O'Neill. Other major playwrights introduced to theatre-going Americans include Robert E. Sherwood, Maxwell Anderson, Sidney Howard, William Saroyan, and Philip Barry. In the field of musical theatre, the Guild has promoted works by Richard Rodgers, teame ...
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Lynn Fontanne
Lynn Fontanne (; 6 December 1887 – 30 July 1983) was an English actress. After early success in supporting roles in the West End, she met the American actor Alfred Lunt, whom she married in 1922 and with whom she co-starred in Broadway and West End productions over the next four decades. They became known as "The Lunts", and were celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic. Fontanne was born in what is now the London suburb of Woodford, and received her first training as an actress from Ellen Terry. After building up an acting career in Britain she worked extensively in the US, first appearing in New York in 1910. Although she appeared in classics including ''The Taming of the Shrew'' and ''The Seagull'', experimental drama by Eugene O'Neill, and dark comedy by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Fontanne and her husband were best known for their stylish performances in light comedies by Noël Coward, S. N. Behrman, Terence Rattigan and others, and romantic plays by writers such as Robert ...
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Alfred Lunt
Alfred David Lunt (August 12, 1892 – August 3, 1977) was an American actor and director, best known for his long stage partnership with his wife, Lynn Fontanne, from the 1920s to 1960, co-starring in Broadway theatre, Broadway and West End theatre, West End productions. After their marriage, they nearly always appeared together. They became known as "the Lunts" and were celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic. Although they appeared in classics including ''The Taming of the Shrew'', ''The Seagull'' and ''Pygmalion (play), Pygmalion'', and dark comedy by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, The Lunts were best known for their stylish performances in light comedies by Noël Coward, S. N. Behrman, Terence Rattigan and others, and romantic plays by writers such as Robert E. Sherwood. Lunt directed some of the couple's productions, and staged plays for other managements. Though they rarely acted for the camera, The Lunts each received an Emmy Award and were nominated for an Academy Award. The Lu ...
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